Latino Vote Could Shape House
While most media attention focuses on George W. Bush and Al Gore's sometimes blatant efforts to court Latinos, the biggest impact of these swing voters might be felt in several in congressional races.
The Republicans' control of the House rests on a thin 11-seat majority, which means a handful of districts with strong Latino representation could tip the balance of power in Congress.
The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) recently released a list of nine districts where the incumbent is vulnerable and where Latinos comprise at least 15 percent of the population. NALEO, a non-partisan group interested in increasing Latino voter participation, selected districts where the incumbent had won his last race by 55 percent of the vote or less and where there was "a potential for the Latino population to play a role," said Rosalind Gold , a NALEO senior director.
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"I don't think either party should be taking Latinos for granted," she said.
NALEO's findings dovetail with a study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a research organization affiliated with Claremont Graduate University in California and the University of Texas at Austin. TRPI specifically studied registered Latino voters in southern California - and measured a 49 percent increase in participation in Los Angeles County alone between 1994 nd 1998.
TRPI dissected past elections to determine how much impact Latinos had in pure numeric terms. For example, Republican James Rogan won re-election to represent California's 27th district in 1998 by a margin of just 6,827 votes. Of the approximately 22,000 Latinos registered as Democrats in the district at the time, about 12,000 did not vote. TRPI reasons that had Latino voter turnout been higher, it could have changed the outcome - and the same opportunity is there this November.
"It's evident that Latinos definitely have the numbers to change the outcome of the election," said Matt Barreto, a TRPI researcher who worked on the study.
But Michael Alvarez, a political scientist who studies voting trends and behavior at Cal Tech University, cautioned against reading too much into such findings. He said the three Republican incumbents in California are vulnerable, because the demographics of their districts have changed to include more democratic, moderate voters. Rogan's district, where Alvarez teaches, has seen an influx on young urbanite families and African-Americans.
"Part of the change is Latinos," said Alvarez, "but not all of the change."
Alvarez added Latino voter participation has stagnated since 1998, when Latinos made about 13 to 15 percent of the California electorate. For that number to grow, he feels it will require another anti-minority piece of legislation like Proposition 187, a 1994 measure which sought to outlaw benefits for illegal immigrants.
"If something happens to motivate voters, we might see their influence on the horizon," said Alvarez.
Henry Pachon, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, also cautions against taking his group's findings and using them to generalize about races in states like Texas and Florida, which also have large Latino populations.
"This is clearly a California phenomenon," he said.
Pachon, who also teaches political science at Claremont University, said California's races could be influenced by what he calls "the new citizen voter". These are individuals who became citizens after 1990 and whose numbers make up at least half of all new registered Latinos voters in California.
"They still see it as a privilege to be able to vote," said Pachon.
While these voters mobilized in the mid-90's against Prop 187 and anti-affirmative action legislation, Pachon believes they will go to the polls regardless.
"They can have an impact if it's a close race," said Pachon. "Definitely."